Community Foundation for Lancashire and Merseyside (CFLM), managers of the Liverpool ONE Foundation, approximate that over the past 8 years, 37,000 local children have directly benefitted from community projects receiving our funding.

These figures highlight the incredible social impact the Foundation’s had across our city-region. With this in mind, we felt compelled to ensure that the Foundation’s aims, and how it makes its donations, was still effective in meeting the needs of our community.

In 2016, we began a review of the Foundation. With CFLM’s guidance, we began to gain valuable insights from across our community into the variety challenges young people face in Merseyside. We wanted to hear how recipients of funding (community groups, social enterprises and charities) thought the Foundation could best support them and the services they offer.

Representatives of the Foundation spent just over a year consulting with community representatives, experts, and city leaders, helping to inform the Foundation’s new direction. Their research, supported by CFLM’s latest Vital Signs report, highlighted broad concern about young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and in particular, the capacity of community organisations and our city’s statutory services to support young people expressing these concerns.

Taking CFM’s findings on board, we began to develop the Foundation’s new aims and approach to donating. Re-launching in summer 2017, the Foundation now seeks to fund community projects that are contributing to a long-term improvement in young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Furthermore, funding will be available for community projects willing to work together and trial innovative approaches to project and new ideas.

The Foundation hopes to receive applications from community organisations taking a bold approach this issue. Examples of the sorts of projects that may be funded are:

Click here to visit CFLM’s website and find out more about the range of funding available and for more information about how the Liverpool ONE Foundation could support your organisation or project.

Liverpool ONE Foundation Panel

In September 2017, the new Liverpool ONE Foundation panel convened for the first time. Together, they awarded over £200,000 to innovative community projects working with children and young people across our region. From left to right our panel is Colette Taylor, Merseyside Youth Association; Paul Court, Merseyside Police’s Community Engagement Chief Inspector; and Lee Pennington, The Open Door Centre’s Charity Director.